Action: Founder's Day 2008

“FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST IMPELS US”
-SCJs Founder’s Day in Kerala Communities-

“I think Fr. Dehon had an operation, because we can see now, he doesn’t wear spectacles”. It was a joke of Fr. Martin when he saw a statue of Fr. Dehon without spectacles in front of house of Dehon Vidya Sadhan Community, in the opening of Founder’s Day for SCJs Kerala Communities at 10 August 2008. While Fr. Martin was giving a garland to a statue of Fr. Dehon, he requested all students from three communities -Dehon Bhavan, Dehon Jyothi and Dehon Vidya Sadhan- to see that in the hand of Fr. Dehon’s Statue, there is a book named Rerum Novarum. It was about a new thing, a new world for social ministry. It was the first time from Church to think and reflect about society. Then he said that Fr. Dehon was a promoter of Rerum Novarum, encyclical from Pope Leo XIII. In keeping with that, Fr. Martin motivated all students; to continue the role of Fr. Dehon as a ‘mouthpiece’ of Pope Leo XIII.
In this opening program, Fr. Teja Anthara as a superior of Dehon Vidya Sadhan community welcomed everybody and reminded all students the spirit of our gathering. Our aim of gathering was for forming us as Dehonian, to know more about the life of Fr. Dehon but also to live in his spirit. We came not only for improving our skills and talents, but for prayer and dig deep our spirituality.
Fr. Thomas Vinod as coordinator of this occasion explained the main theme in this gathering. In this year, we have chosen the theme of our next General Chapter as our theme; “For the love of Christ impels us”. By this theme, we promote to our students our care and concern for the Congregation. We invited our students to support our General and District Chapter, not only by praying, but also by reflecting and expressing the theme of General Chapter in our gathering and through several competition of creating essays, poem, drawing, sculpture, choirs, skit and quiz.
As the tradition in SCJ India District, especially in Kerala Area, we used this occasion for our intern communities and we didn’t invite people, except our teachers. The Founder’s Day is time for us to build up a consolidation of community, to go back into the deep and throw our ‘net’ for finding out our identity and spirit.
The program consisted three parts. First, we spent time to reflect and to learn more about the life of Fr. Dehon by quiz competition, art and culture program. Second, we contemplated the love of Christ that impels us through adoration. In this adoration, we were giving crosses to our first orientation students as a symbol of identity as Dehonians but also as members of the community. Third, we expressed our joy by some games to explore our skills and talents.

____________________